


Hangover Breakfast

by SleepyKalena



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: (that didn't actually happen), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Implied Sexual Content, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 14:39:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13906155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepyKalena/pseuds/SleepyKalena
Summary: Cassian tries to figure out what is bothering Jyn while surviving a massive hangover.If he couldn't handle being less than a Straight-A Student™, he's not sure how he could handle the possibility that he might've ruined their friendship thanks to his drunken stupor from the night before.[The sequel toThe Happy-Picture]





	Hangover Breakfast

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TinCanTelephone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinCanTelephone/gifts).



> The direct sequel to [The Happy-Picture](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12390372)!
> 
> A couple of months ago, I got a [lovely comment](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12390372/comments/139716096) that read: "I was just re-reading this and I know you're prob. really busy with (un)disclosed and life-y things but if you're inclined I would give a lot to read a Hungover Breakfast sequel :) :)"
> 
> [imsfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsfire) chimed in, also interested in a sequel, and some months later...here it is!
> 
> I don't think i'm particularly good w/ direct sequels, so hopefully this one delivers just as much as the original.

Cassian woke up with a raging headache.

He groaned as he lifted his head slightly, his brain feeling fuzzy and a compression at his temples so overbearing that he opened his mouth, wanting to scream.

Instead, he yawned.

Thin rays of light filtered in through his room. The morning felt so lazy that even the dust around him floated idly by, past the exposed light, without a care in the world.

If only he could float like that than be bogged down by this headache.

He sat up, trying to think back to what might've possibly happened to cause this pain in the first place. As he rolled over to grab his phone at the nightstand, he kicked something that felt like a pillow, but definitely groaned like a human.

Curious, he pulled the sheets back to reveal a messy-haired brunette, her shirt from the night before hiked up enough to nearly tease at the sight of a bra and only wearing cotton panties for bottoms.

Cassian quickly covered her body back up with the blanket out of sheer embarrassment as she shifted. Luckily his movement wasn't enough to wake her.

Still, though- how did he wind up in this situation? The last thing he remembered was-

It hit him.

He finally remembered about how shitty he felt with the C grade he got from Professor Draven.

He remembered Jyn dragging him out of the house for drinks.

He...didn't remember how much he consumed.

They didn't sleep together, did they?

He gulped.

A shower would help. Possibly. Maybe that would buy him time to remember everything, and maybe the headache would go away. He mustered all his strength to get up from the other side of the bed to eat some crackers and water, pop in an ibuprofen (two, actually, for good measure), and took a cold shower to wake himself up.

It didn't work.

He hadn't remembered much except for all the rambling about Draven, and as he returned to his room, quietly as possible, he found Jyn awake, putting her jeans back on casually as if this were a common routine for her.

The sight was anything but common for Cassian, and he averted his gaze before other body parts had a chance to react.

He tried to play it off by briskly drying his hair off with his towel. She looked up at him with a smirk as she fastened the top button and said, "Good morning, Princess."

He responded with a cool grin of his own. "I could say the same for you, Sleeping Beauty; you were out cold when I got up."

Jyn laughed softly and grabbed her phone from the carpet. "That bad, eh? Least I'm not hungover."

He noticed she was trying not to look him in the eye, and stuck her face to her phone to answer some texts a little more fervently than what he was used to seeing.

Did something happen between them last night after all?

Cassian's thoughts were put on hold when his phone vibrated strongly against the nightstand and the heavy rattling noise tore through his mind like a drill. He winced and Jyn laughed again.

"Looks like I won this one," she teased. "How much of last night do you remember?"

Was this a test?

This **had** to be a test.

He scanned through his memories again, desperate to determine if they actually **did** sleep together. But it was no use- try as he might, he **still** couldn't remember anything.

He could easily act as though they never did. But what if they had? His lack of acknowledgement would be a slap in the face for Jyn. It would ruin their friendship, **and** he'd hate himself for not remembering what she felt like.

Not that she occupied his thoughts like that or anything…

_Concentrate, Cassian!_

On the other hand, if he acted as though they HAD slept together, he'd risk humiliation if they, in fact, had **not**. Worse yet, Jyn may possibly even see him as a pervert, and their friendship would be damaged.

It took them such a long time for them to become as close as they have; her inner circle was less of a circus ring and more of an eye of a needle. If she decided to shut him out because he got too drunk and acted stupidly, it was game over, and he'd live to regret it.

That “C” grade was the worst thing to happen to him, hands down, bar none.

Though, really, his grades could never be a proper excuse for his poor decisions. Even _if_ Draven was an exceedingly overbearing professor.

Either way, he had to come up with some kind of answer, and fast, because his lack of an immediate response was giving him away; her face went from curious to mischievous, and her bunny-like teeth flashed prominently as she gave him a sly grin.

"You don't remember a thing, do you?"

He started to stammer. "O-Of course I do! I remember-"

_Breakfast!_

She mentioned something about "hangover breakfast".

_Yes, good!_

"-that you promised me hangover breakfast!" he said as smoothly as possible, hoping that the slight pause between his words didn't reveal the mess and havoc in his mind.

There was a spark of acknowledgement in her eyes, and he knew then that he’d said the right thing, but that spark soon fizzled out and it started to look more like-

Is Jyn disappointed in his answer?

Panic seeped in.

"I mean...you did promise me that, didn't you?" he asked cautiously. He could've sworn that was a legitimate memory. Now he was starting to second-guess himself.

If he blinked in that moment he would've missed it. A series of thoughts seemed to flash through her mind, and he noticed her eyebrows scrunched slightly in concentration before settling to a kind of smile only poker players would give. "No, I did promise you that," she said gently. "You down for pancakes?"

The difference was subtle, but Cassian knew Jyn well enough to know that this was certainly not her default cadence. Something was bothering her, and he was going to have to spend the rest of the day figuring out what he did wrong in order to make up for his mistake, if that’s what it would take. He wanted to avoid looking like a damn fool about it, however, so he responded with a smirk. "Only if they come with a greasy side of bacon!"

Goodness, did the bacon help.

But only a little.

As he slowly indulged in the first slice of thick-cut bacon, he noticed Jyn eyeing him with a smile from across the table in the cafe. The bacon was crispy on the outside, juicy and fatty on the inside, and definitely what the doctor (Jyn, in this case) ordered. But the sheer deliciousness and satisfaction of his hangover subsiding wasn't enough to distract him from the overall problem in that Jyn wore yet _another_ kind of smile that hid something from him. He continued to chew, but his concern for Jyn only grew.

He ultimately decided to be direct with her and get over the embarrassment of whatever his drunken actions were sooner rather than later. "Jyn," he said finally, "You've been acting kind of funny since this morning, and I just want to know if-"

"Allllllllright, sir, here are your garlic and chive waffles with extra butter on the side," the waitress said sweetly as she set a hot plate of food down in front of him. "And red velvet pancakes for you!" she said to Jyn, setting down a plate of pancakes so large that the porcelain only peeked out from the pancakes’ edges at certain points.

The waitress set down a utensil set for each of them. "Do you folks need anything else?"

"Answers," muttered Cassian as he took another bite of bacon in frustration. Who knew when he'd get the confidence back to bite the bullet and speak frankly with her.

“I’m sorry?”

He shook his head, his hair ruffling with it, and he smiled sweetly at the waitress. “Nothing, I’m good!” He looked at Jyn and she, too, shook her head and smiled.

“Let me know if you need anything else, then,” the waitress said before moving away to address the table next to them.

 _Answers, answers, answers, I need answers!_ he wanted to scream, but only wound up doing so in his mind. Cassian so badly wanted to ask Jyn about last night, but the look of pure joy and satisfaction on her face as she took an enormous first bite of her cocoa-dusted red velvet pancake prevented him from saying anything. He noticed that she hadn’t been as energetic and bright since the semester started- he’d feel incredibly guilty if he ruined this for her, especially when moments like this were fleeting.

He took a piece of waffle, scraped off a bit of the butter, and dipped the piece in his syrup. Taking a bite, he let the sweet syrup mingle with the saltiness of the butter and savored the harmony of flavors working with the roasted garlic bits. It practically melted the rest of his hangover away like the butter on his tongue, and he too couldn’t help but smile at the sensation.

Cassian eyed Jyn, about to ask how she was enjoying her meal, as he usually did whenever they ate out together. Jyn, as usual, sensed him looking at her, and she looked up from her pancakes. He flashed her a look, a question he’d asked with his eyes so many times before, and she returned the smile and nodded, a confirmation that she was enjoying herself.

Except this time the smile was just a little bit too wide, a little bit... _too_ happy _._

Jyn ducked her head back down to focus on the pancakes.

Something about Jyn was _definitely_ off.

Cassian decided to let it go for now, but once she was done with her pancakes, he would definitely, _definitely_ ask her.

She finished her pancakes before he could finish his breakfast, which was normal, but instead of making small talk with him like she normally would, she looked off at the line of customers waiting for tables to open up in the noisy cafe. She looked a bit distant, almost despondent, surely, and Cassian’s chewing slowed to a stop.

 _Ask now,_ Cassian’s inner voice suggested, and he set down his fork.

“Jyn…” he started.

No response.

“Jyn?” he tried again, but she was still looking out the window, seemingly unaware that he’d said anything at all.

“Jyn,” he repeated, more firmly this time, and he reached across the table and waved.

She jumped a little, startled by the sudden movement in the corner of her vision, and she snapped out of her trance and looked at him with a slight blush across her face.

“Are you alright?” he finally asked, concern creasing his eyebrows.

He could tell Jyn was trying to play innocent by the way she smiled, but her eyes failed to crease. “I’m fine,” she said in her most reassuring tone.

“You haven’t been acting yourself since we woke up. Something is bothering you and…” his voice trailed as he gathered his hands and folded them onto his lap, trying his best to find the words that would annoy her the least. “I’m worried I might’ve done something to upset you last night. Please tell me what it is.” He looked up at her and he noticed she was taken aback by his gaze. “I want to try and make it up to you if I’ve made some sort of mistake.

Cassian braced for her to yell at him, to call him insensitive, or even to say he was the worst sex she ever had. Either way, his heart raced, expecting the worst. He could take it. It was only fair, after all.

Her lips parted and she took a deep breath, as if she had a novel’s worth of words to unload onto him.

 _Here it comes- brace yourself._ Cassian thought, and he closed his eyes.

“The polaroid in your phone case.”

_Wait, what?_

His eyes flew open, surprised at the lack of insults. “The polaroid?”

She nodded subtly, but she hid her face as she took a sip of coffee, and her blush deepened. “I noticed the polaroid in your phone case.”

Now it was Cassian’s turn to blush. It was one of the few personal things he kept for himself, and Jyn had found it. He was sure Jyn thought of him as a creep by now.

“I’m sorry,” he responded rather quietly. “I shouldn’t have kept it.”

She blinked. “You regret keeping that picture?”

He shifted his gaze. “A bit, yeah; in hindsight it’s a bit creepy to keep a photo like that when we’re not dating or anything, but you’re like a best friend to me and I wanted a keepsake of the first time we met.”

No amount of dish clattering and background chatter could ease the silence between them. Cassian was practically _wishing_ for Jyn to yell at him. It would’ve been preferable at this point- at least if she yelled, he could say something, anything in response to try and appease her. Instead, he was stuck mulling in silence, and his mind started to wander aimlessly in hopes of being able to say something to steer him in the right direction.

Then, “You told me it was your ‘happy-picture’,” she said, almost too quiet for him to hear at first. “That I knew how to cheer you up last night, which was why I was in your ‘happy-picture’.”

_Did I really say that?_

Well, she wasn’t wrong. He was glad Bodhi dragged him out of his dorm to go to a party he wasn’t even in the mood to attend. If he hadn’t begrudgingly gotten dressed and headed over there, he wouldn’t have met a Jedi so cute and sassy she could give Obi-Wan Kenobi a run for his money if she were in the films.

 _Come to think of it,_ he remembered, _I was awkward around Jyn then, too._

Man, his life is a confusing mess.

He looked down at his plate and smirked a little, mostly to himself. “Life got a little less bleak with you around, if you could believe it.” He then pulled his phone out of his pocket, took out the photo from his phone case, and held it out to her. “But, since you’re in the picture as well, you should have a say in it.” He pinched the photo on either end, ready to try and rip it in half. “Just say the word, and it’ll be gone.”

Jyn stared at him, a bit wide-eyed, then back down at the polaroid picture, then back at him, and again back down at the photo. She looked surprised, confused, unsure of what to do. Cassian had no idea what else he could do either, and her reactions were leaving him just as confused as she looked.

“Um…” she started, nearly stuttering, the blush still there, and she dug in to her purse to look for her wallet and took out a polaroid photo of her own, wedged between two ID cards.

She held it up to Cassian and his heart skipped a beat.

It was the same photo he had.

And, underneath it, Jyn’s handwriting in green Sharpie, at the center: “2012. Me and Cassian” followed by smaller writing at the bottom: “(New best friend??? :D)”

“I wasn’t sure what it meant when I saw it, and I wanted to ask, but...” She bit her lip and looked up at him, but she looked as though she decided that looking directly at him was a bad idea, and she averted her gaze back to the crowd outside. “I had this feeling you might’ve...maybe thought of me as more than a friend, since you don’t own a lot of keepsakes, but I was afraid I read the signals wrong.”

He couldn’t believe it.

He _must_ be dreaming.

But the mild throbbing in his head, the last vestiges of his hangover, were reminding him that he was, in fact, still awake. Alive. _Not_ dreaming. He was hearing something that was as close to a confession one could expect from someone like Jyn.

 _Jyn_ , who might actually be open to taking things just a bit further than friendship.

“I…you...um…” he babbled, tripping over his own words before clearing his throat and said with greater certainty, “No. No, you didn’t.”

She froze, and slowly turned her head back to him. “Really?” she breathed.  Her eyes were now genuinely widened, the mix of emotions laid out on her sleeves, and her lips were parted just slightly with the faintest hint of surprise.

He’d kiss her if he weren’t shaking with excitement on the inside.

“I like your company. A lot, actually,” he elaborated, eventually clenching and unclenching his fists to ease the shaking. “But I wasn’t sure how you felt, and I didn’t want to mess anything up between us...but I guess drunk-me decided to be less subtle about things.”

The moment was broken for just a bit as the waitress dropped off the bill.

Jyn took out some cash and paid for her half, as she usually did.

Cassian took out cash of his own as well, as he usually did.

But it felt a little different this time for Cassian. It felt like he was paying his fair share in a date, rather than brunch with a friend. He wasn’t sure what to make of it, but so far there was a tingling in his fingers and a warmth and his chest, and he decided he rather liked this new feeling.

“I think…” she said slowly, hesitantly, nervous about getting the words right, “I think I’d like to give it a try. Being more than best friends, I mean.”

He couldn’t hold back a smile. “Yeah?”

Her lips pinched and her eyelashes fluttered. “Yeah.”

“Good,” he breathed, feeling a sense of relief he suspected had nothing to do with his subsiding hangover.

She nodded, a small, shy smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as she fidgeted a little. “Good.”

They left the restaurant, away from the noise of the now-packed cafe, and Cassian couldn’t believe his luck, not especially when he felt her hand slowly come in contact with his as they continued to walk. Gingerly, he laced his fingers with hers, and she responded with a soft, warm squeeze.

Perhaps that “C” grade was actually the _best_ thing to happen to him, hands down, bar none.

**Author's Note:**

> I recently went to the cafe I based this off on, so [have a picture of the red velvet pancake and the bacon](https://sleepykalena.tumblr.com/post/172006675183/in-case-anyone-was-curious-like-maybe)
> 
> and, as usual, find me on [tumblr](sleepykalena.tumblr.com)!


End file.
